


out of sight

by Skyepilot



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Complicated Relationships, Daisy on the Run, Drinking, Drinking & Talking, F/M, Fate, Feelings, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Implied Sexual Content, Insecurity, Kissing, Male-Female Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-11
Updated: 2016-06-11
Packaged: 2018-07-14 11:15:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7168799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skyepilot/pseuds/Skyepilot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Skoulson fic inspired by a couple of scenes from the film Out of Sight, if you didn't guess from the clever title. :)</p>
            </blockquote>





	out of sight

This is a mistake, sitting out in the open like this.

He likes it, though.  The emptiness. 

It’s a kind of mirror, perhaps.  And it’s cold out, and he’s in the middle of nowhere on his way to the next assignment.

There are enemies he’s accumulated, though, now that he’s back in the field and not in the shadows.

It doesn’t matter.

Today was just another one of those days.

Just a company man.

Now, if he could only get the waiter’s attention.  Or get up and go to the bar and make this easier on himself.

“The drink’s on her.”

He eases back into the seat as the waiter drops the beer on the table in front of him, then he does a quick scan of the near-empty bar.

There _is_ a woman at the bar, but she’s been there since he arrived, and she’s not looking at him or at anyone.

Maybe she just took pity on him.

It feels like that kind of night.

“Cheers.”

He lifts the beer towards her back and takes a sip as he feels someone come along beside him.

The tension in him rises, a short mental list of people who want him dead files through his mind, and then he relaxes and sits back in the seat.  Plays it cool while he touches his gun through his jacket.

“You always drink alone?”

Slowly, lifting his eyes at the sound of her voice, he meets her gaze and freezes.

“No. Not always,” he answers, finding his voice.

“Mind if I join you?”

With a shake of his head, she sets down her own bottle of beer, then slides the leather jacket off of her arms and takes the seat across from him.

“You don’t look like you’re from around here,” he jokes.

Her appearance is different than the other times he’s caught a glimpse of her. Wearing all black, but her hair is much shorter.  Probably to accommodate the disguises she’s been wearing when she’s not operating as Quake.

“I’m not. Just passing through.”

She picks up the beer again and looks him over before taking a long drink.

“Where are you headed?” he asks, smiling just a little in amusement.  Of this whole situation.

All he’s wanted is to see her for months, and it happens like this.  She finds him.

“Oh, I’m a bit of a drifter,” she replies, as the corner of her mouth pulls up. “I kind of take it day by day.”

“What do you do for work?” If he can keep this up, keep her talking, maybe she’ll-

She leans forward conspiratorially, and he moves closer to meet her.

“What if I told you…I robbed a bank?”

He frowns slightly, undercut by the joke.  It’s not a joke.  She _did_ rob a bank, and he’s not sure he should humor this.

“You’re not going to arrest me, are you?”

She sits back in her chair with an bemused expression, and raises her knee to put it against the table, taking another long drink.

“I’m not a cop,” he answers, then swallows.

“What do you do, then…uh…”  She’s waiting for him. Seeing if he’ll play the game, pretending like they don’t even know each other.

“John.”  It’s the first name that comes to mind.

“What an unusual name,” she teases. “I’m Jane.”

“Likewise.”  He smirks at her, then breathes out, relaxing a little.  He starts to think about it. What would it have been like, if they’d met like this, instead of him tracking her down and putting a bag over her head? Before she joined SHIELD?

“You didn’t tell me what you do, John,” she goes on, resting her elbows on the table, and tucking a long strand of hair behind one ear, tugging at the end of her knit sweater.

“I’m a history teacher,” he shrugs, then takes a sip. “High school up in Wisconsin.”

“I can see that,” she tells him, as she props her chin against one hand.  “You’re probably great with kids.  That kind of face.” And he feels his face get hot as her eyes trace over him.

“Are you really a bank robber?” he whispers, lowering his voice so she’ll lean closer.

“No,” she hesitates, then brushes her fingers against his hand, while every single hair there tingles. “How long are we going to keep this up?”

“I was just starting to like my new self,” he answers. She smirks at that, and lowers her gaze.

When he finally meets her eyes, it’s as he puts his hand over hers.  Remembering a time when he wouldn’t have let himself have this moment.

“Do you want to get out of here?”

“Yes,” he smiles.

 

#

They get back to his cheap motel room and open a bottle of whiskey they bought at the liquor store on the corner.

It’s a good bottle, and it doesn’t really belong with the room, but it’s the least he can do.

They get out of their jackets and warm up a bit, and he chuckles to himself as he pours the whiskey into their plastic cups.

They touch their cups together and she actually says “clink” out loud to break the silence between them. It just makes the smile on his face get wider.  He’s so fond of her.

“How did you find me?” he asks.

“I hacked the ATCU and looked you up, Agent.  Found your last assignment, got the plates on your rental based on the airport arrival, and-“

“Sounds like a lot of work,” he interrupts. “Thanks.”

“I’ve _wanted_ to see you,” she says, suddenly serious. “But for a while there, you had too many people around.”

“They could still be watching me, you know?” He shoots back the liquor in his cup and winces, then goes to pour another.  After all, Talbot pinned some hopes on the fact she’d come looking for him at some point. 

Then it never happened.

“I’m sorry,” she tells him, reaching her hand towards his arm as he moves away.

“Don’t be,” he answers. “I don’t know what I was thinking, coming after you.  That I could somehow bring you in, and make things right? If I got to you first?”

“I didn’t come here to listen to you feel guilty,” she says, setting down her cup.  “This isn’t about SHIELD and the ATCU, or the Sokovia Accords...Inhumans.”

“What’s it about then?”  Why is she here?  Does she need something from him?  Information?  He’s been doing this long enough to know when-

“Us.”

Not to explain herself, or what she’s been doing this whole time.  The ramifications of that. How much he’s been worried sick about her…

Us.

It takes him a moment to process it all, and then it clicks.  He sets his whiskey down next to hers, and then steps closer to her.

Reaching his hand to her face, he brushes his thumb across her cheek where there’s still the faint scar because of Hive.  They both have scars of all different kinds.  So many between the two of them.

“Phil.” Her eyes flutter when he touches her, the way his name sounds formed in her mouth makes his heart ache with tenderness.

Her hand lands on the front of his shirt and it occurs to him how unlike himself he must seem. He hasn’t shaved in a week, at least.

And then he forgets to care, when she moves in closer, and he can feel her breath against his face.

This should be complicated, and none of it makes sense; how they couldn’t keep things together, between the two of them.  How he didn’t know what she needed in the end, and his damn guilt.

This, though. _This_ he doesn’t need an explanation for, he can feel it as she smiles against his mouth when he pushes her up to the wall, desperate to kiss her.

“Daisy.” He has to say it. It’s been stuck inside of him for months.

She frees her hands and then slides them over his shoulders to pull him in closer, tilting her head to the side to kiss him back _more_. 

It’s so like her, and his body feels alive with the memory of her, stored up inside of him, not even understanding completely until now how deeply these feelings have run.

And he already feels naked and needy, so he backs away towards the bed and pulls the shirt off over his head, before turning back to her.

Her eyes land on the scar, of course, that she’s known about but never seen, then her gaze falls on the rest of his body and lingers.

She smirks back appreciatively, and yanks her sweater up over her head, tossing it aside, then bites on her lower lip when he starts to undo the button on his jeans.

The kiss was enough to get him hard.  Thinking about kissing her would’ve been. Her stripping in front of him, though is making him absolutely impatient. 

After all of this time, you’d think he’d be the one to slow things down.

Instead he pulls her against him, kisses her again, then lifts her enough to toss her on the bed and dives after her.

He knows he’ll be dreaming of her laugh as he wrestles her against the pillows.

 

#

The light comes on in the middle of the night, and he startles awake.  Realizing he’s forgotten to take his pain meds, too.

She’s standing in the bathroom, bathed in the light.  The most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

“We’re still friends, right?” she asks him, noticing him watching her, she leans against the door frame now, wearing his t-shirt and her underwear.

“Why would you think we’re not?” he answers, sitting up some more and rubbing at his eyes to get awake.

“This changed everything.”

“Well, yes,” he thinks on it.  Smiles. Again.  Bigger. “Definitely.”

“I can’t stay. You know that.  And this wasn’t some-”

“I _do_ know.”  He sits up against the headboard, and holds his hand out to her.  “Can you come here?  Please?”

She walks over to him, letting herself fall into his arms, resting on top of him, staring up at him from where her chin is propped against his chest with those huge brown eyes.

“I just didn’t want to make a mistake. With you,” she grumbles.

“This isn’t a mistake,” he says, as he touches her hair.  “At least, I thought I wasn’t _that_ bad.”

“ _Phil_ …”  He’s going to stop, because now she’s rolling her eyes.  Although, she is gorgeous when she’s irritated, too. 

“Have you ever met someone, and, even if it was just for a moment, it’s like you knew them your whole life?  You just had something…you can’t find the words for?”

She licks at her bottom lip thinking on it, and then tries to hide the smile forming on her face.

“I got to wake up with that feeling almost every day for three years,” he finishes. “It was _not_ a mistake.”

“You kidnapped me,” she says, looking a little tearful, distracting herself by running her fingers through the hair on his chest, over his scar.

“You told me it was a part of your plan,” he teases.

“You weren’t,” she sighs, meeting his eyes and running her finger over his bottom lip.

“Maybe it was fate?” He’s being serious.  He’s had the same thoughts himself as of late.

She nods, thinking on it, an intensity to her expression.  Then moves over him to replace her finger with her mouth.

“I can live with that.”

 

#

When he wakes up in the morning, she’s gone.

She turned the alarm off, so he would sleep in.

He stretches and looks at the time, and then puts his hand over the empty space where she’d slept next to him.

It’s not warm anymore.  There was so much more he wanted to say.  And do.

Then he sees his meds sitting on the nightstand and a glass of water beside it.

There’s a little note and he leans across the bed and reaches for it, reads it over.

         “That was fun, John. Let’s do it again. xxx Jane.”

Convincing the Director to let him back on her trail is going to take _a lot_ of work.

Whatever it takes, he’s going to find a way to get her back.


End file.
